Surly Image Belies Maris' True Nature

December 15, 1985|By Larry Guest of the Sentinel Staff

God has a new cleanup hitter today. Big, burly guy with a flattop, a quick smile, muscles out to here and a fluid stroke designed to transform baseballs into tiny specks high above the outfield bleachers.

If heaven has a short right-field porch, St. Peter better hope the hereafter's home-run records are all scrawled in pencil. But just a note of warning: Your new slugger may be a bit testy in media interviews, although I sort of doubt that heaven's press corps contains many of the sensationalists who made his best seasons here on earth a living hell.

Not much question, though, where Roger Maris is today after his two-year fight with cancer of the lymph system ended Saturday in a Houston hospital. For although he was publicly miscast as an ogre and social misfit, Roger Maris was a devoted and loving family man, a kind boss and a good neighbor. The primary sadness I feel over his premature departure from this earth is that so precious few were privileged to enjoy the true side of Roger's proud, upbeat nature.

I had that privilege in spades one glorious autumn day in 1981 on the 20th anniversary of Roger's 61st homer, which eclipsed the revered Babe's single-season mark. A man who was soured by the national spotlight that engulfed him and later worked feverishly to become the nameless guy next door, Roger accepted just one speaking engagement in the first 19 years after his retirement and didn't return to Yankee Stadium for the hallowed, annual Old- Timers Day until 1978. He rejected a lucrative offer for the rights to a TV movie on his life, fearful that it just would start the circus all over again. During Maris' run for Ruth, the carnivorous New York media treated Roger shabbily, feeling only Mickey Mantle, the beloved Adonis, was worthy of supplanting the Babe. They carved deep emotional scars that left him suspicious of reporters. He granted a mere handful of retirement interviews, giving the world only the slightest peek past that portrait of boorishness painted by an adversary press.

For whatever reason, Maris gave me a full day to reflect on his life after 61 homers. That day in 1981 we played a round of golf, rapped in his memorabilia-laden home for nearly two hours, then shared dinner that evening with our wives in a Gainesville restaurant not far from his beer distributorship. He laughed, he charmed, he was aglow with love for his large family, he beat the bejabbers out of me in golf, he lovingly detailed each autographed baseball bat that formed the railing descending into his den, he waxed melancholy about his problems in handling the crush of attention as a player.

''The fun was gone after the 1961 season,'' he recounted. ''The '61 season was easy. It was the aftermath that's so hard to explain. There wasn't a ballpark I had relief in. They booed me at home, and they booed me on the road. It wears on you. It was difficult.''

He was thankful for being in the best health of his life, and there was nothing in his appearance that suggested otherwise although the cancer that would kill him was already taking root. (When his condition was diagnosed in 1983, doctors estimated the disease had been building, undetected, for five years.)

He shook his head sadly that day at the shots he was still taking from some journalists. They were sneering at his name on the Hall of Fame ballot (Incredibly, he still has not been elected to the Hall of Fame.), and one even conjured a lingering feud between him and Mantle.

In truth, Roger and Mickey, friends while in uniform, developed an even stronger bond in later years. After Maris' cancer was discovered, Mantle called Roger every week. When news of Roger's death arrived Saturday, Mantle and Whitey Ford were taping a TV show at the Yankees' spring training ballpark in Fort Lauderdale. Mickey and Whitey halted the shooting and retired to the manager's office to be alone.

Roger was even criticized in the public prints for sticking to his flattop, a subject he addressed during our lengthy visit in a manner that now takes on macabre tones. ''I've had a crew cut all but one year of my life,'' he said. ''When I go in the box, it'll be the same way.''

That flattop goes in the box this week, taking with it an extraordinary athlete and exemplary human being.